[bailaviborita]

This article openly advocates for changing the culture...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/o...-warriors.html

Sweden, which sent troops to support the American-led war in Afghanistan, first integrated women into combat jobs in 1989 and began a gender-neutral draft last year. Swedish recruit training barracks look close to a “Starship Troopers” ideal of coed rooms and showers. One room housed 10 men and four women, all in bunk beds, and the recruits viewed this integration as crucial to unit strength. One night I accompanied a female corporal down a barracks hallway where a junior soldier stood without shirt or pants, one hand in his underwear, talking on a cellphone. We shrugged.

Two Norwegian researchers, Nina Hellum and Ulla-Britt Lilleaas, have found that having male and female troops live together has a “degenderizing” effect that makes soldiers act more like siblings, reducing harassment.

The question, then, is not whether women can be effective combat troops but whether a hypermasculine military culture can adjust. The potential benefits of having women in combat units argue for making that happen.

Women, for instance, led teams that interviewed and searched civilian women in Afghanistan, providing crucial information to infantry units while also engaging in combat alongside them. A 2015 Marine Corps study found that coed groups were better at problem-solving. And while I was a platoon commander in Iraq and California, Marines came to my office to discuss their breakups and divorces. Perhaps these guarded young men seemed comfortable revealing their heartbreak because I’m an older sister of three brothers.